ConAgra Foods Reports Increased Earnings Per Share In Fourth-Quarter

Jul 22, 2014

ConAgra Foods, Inc., one of North America’s leading packaged food companies, reported results for the fiscal 2011 fourth quarter, which ended May 29, 2011. As reported, diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations was $0.62, 130 percent above the $0.27 earned in the year-ago period. Results include $0.15 of net benefit in the current quarter and $0.11 of net expense in the year-ago period from items impacting comparability; adjusting for those items, comparable diluted EPS from continuing operations of $0.47 in the current quarter was 24 percent above the $0.38 earned a year ago. Items impacting comparability, including those related to business segment performance, for the current fiscal year and prior fiscal year are summarized toward the end of this.

The consumer foods segment posted sales of $2,027 million and operating profit of $367 million for the fourth quarter. Sales increased slightly as reported, reflecting favorable price/mix of 2 percent, approximately 2 percent benefit from acquisitions (net of divestitures), and an organic volume decline of 3 percent. The volume decline reflects difficult market conditions, including soft demand and the impact of price increases necessitated by high input costs. Net prices have increased for key areas of the portfolio, including cooking oil-related products, frozen foods, and snacks. Additional net pricing increases have been implemented early in fiscal 2012, and the company will continue taking responsible pricing actions as market conditions require.

More brand details can be found in the Q&A document accompanying this release.

Operating profit of $367 million was 63 percent above the $226 million in the year-ago period, as reported. Current-quarter operating profit includes $95 million of net benefit from items impacting comparability, the largest component of which is an insurance-related gain; prior-year amounts include $69 million of net expense from items impacting comparability. Adjusting for those amounts, comparable current-quarter operating profit of $273 million was 7 percent below prior-year comparable operating profit of $295 million. The comparable profit decline reflects very high input cost inflation, which approximated 9 percent of cost of goods sold; inflation was partially offset by pricing actions, as discussed above, as well as strong supply chain savings, lower advertising and promotion expense, and lower incentive compensation expense.